WHAT I WOULD RADIATE TO THE WRONG DOER
For two years I was the chaplain for two homes where women who had led
evil lives were sheltered and cared for. During part of this time I
helped organize and conduct a midnight mission in one of the most
degraded parts of a large eastern city. I have had a large and varied
acquaintance with criminals of both sexes, of all ages and conditions,
and have been the recipient of many strange and startling confidences of
men and women whose integrity has never been questioned, and yet who, if
their inner life were known, would have been execrated and ostracized.
As a result of these varied experiences and the knowledge that has come
to me I am compelled to assert that I believe our present system of
treatment of wrong-doers is not only unchristian but unwise and foolish,
and that it fosters and cherishes some of the very wrongs we seek to
prevent.
The attitude we take--that every evil doer loves his evil doing, sins
because he wants to sin, is a criminal for his own pleasure--is absurd
and foolish. And what wicked cruelties such an attitude leads us to
commit. Socrates saw clearer than that centuries ago when he said: "It
is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an
ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an
ill-conditioned soul!"
Most of us have a lot of maxims or rules that we apply to those
wrong-doers who come under our ken, forgetful of the fact that the
strange thing about human nature is that it doesn't fit your, or my, or
any one's ideas or notions. It cannot be bounded, as you bound a sea or
an island. It cannot be plotted or catalogued as you plot a lawn or
catalogue a library. The only way you can read men and women is with
sympathy and love--sympathy for their failures to measure up to your
conceptions of manhood and womanhood; love for the undoubted good that
you perceive.
All moral judgments must remain false and hollow that are not checked
and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances
that mark the individual lot.
Christ did not in the least abrogate the Seventh Commandment when he
said to the woman _taken in the act_ of adultery: "I do not condemn
thee. Go and sin no more." In my opinion He wished to teach the lesson
that the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of her accusers were also
crimes.
All men that are drunkards are not equally culpable, deserving of
hell-fire and to be swept there by quoting the Hebrew scriptures: "No
drunkard shall inherit eternal life." The special circumstances must be
considered, and God only is competent to do this. Whenever I hear these
ready quotations, whenever I am tempted to use them in my dealings with
my erring fellow-men and women I recall what George Eliot wrote in _The
Mill on the Floss_.
All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to
the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the
mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims,
and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress
all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing
insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular
representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment
safely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to
justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of
exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality,--without any care
to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a
hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and
intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that
is human.
The true brotherhood of man is that which takes upon itself all the
weaknesses, all the burdens, all the woes, all the sins of the world of
men and women. This is what Christ did! Ah, that we might perceive and
realize it! This is what makes Walt Whitman so great a poet,--that he
tries to teach us this lesson. This is what gave to Ernest Crosby his
power, gave to Golden Rule Jones his influence. They felt the
brotherhood, truly, really, deeply, even though imperfectly. Christ felt
it perfectly. Can we not try to feel it? Whenever we behold sin in
others it behooves us to remember that Paul said, "_All_ have sinned and
come short of the glory of God," and that whenever we condemn sin in
another we condemn some sin in ourselves. We are all sinners in some way
or another. There are those who feel the oneness of human relationship
so keenly that they have declared that when another did a wrong they
felt it as if it were their own personal act. While I have not yet come
to so close a recognition of my brotherhood to all men and women as
that, I can deeply sympathize with the feeling. We all know how a
brother feels if one of his own family--sister or brother--"goes wrong."
He is grieved and disgraced. A burden is placed upon him. When we fully
recognize the brotherhood we owe to all men and women I doubt not we
shall then feel this personal sorrow and disgrace, which will lead us to
seek our brother's speedy reclamation, with helpful sympathy and loving
encouragement.
Only those touched with the essential spirit of the love that belongs to
the Divine, or those who have sinned much, can know the great secret of
human tenderness and long suffering towards the wrong doer that alone,
_at times_, can help him. Oh for more of this human tenderness and
sympathy, this long suffering and patience, this active principle of
Divine Love that burns through all crusts and coatings of evil into the
most secret corners of the heart where the good is enshrined, though
forgotten.
I have just been talking with a prominent editor about a man in his
office, competent, thorough, reliable, manly, a systematic worker and
able to get the best results out of those in his department, yet who,
once in a while, goes off on a terrible debauch. He will drink up all
the money at hand, then draw out whatever he has saved in the bank
(sometimes nearly a thousand dollars), engage an automobile, surround
himself with dissolute companions, squander his money on them, then
borrow from his friends, who, knowing that when sober he will pay back
every cent, cruelly lend it to him, and thus "go the pace" until either
money gives out, or physical endurance can no longer stand the strain.
Then his true friends come and pick him up out of the gutter, or care
for him in a hospital until he recovers.
As soon as he is sane and sober again he is overwhelmed with remorse and
sorrow. He knows that he is ruining himself in every way and from every
possible standpoint, yet there is that in him that seems to render him
incapable of resisting these temptations to periodical sprees. He
listens with true penitence to the cautions of his employers, his
fellow workers, and to the heart-broken pleadings of his aged mother who
fairly idolizes him--still he drinks.
What shall I radiate to such a man--to all such men? Can I ignore the
degradation of their debauchery? Certainly not! Can I ignore the fact
that, as a rule, when the downward path is once begun, the sober
intervals grow shorter after each debauch, and that by radiating
friendliness to such a man I am tying myself to one who will ultimately
disgrace himself and me? Shall I cease to be his friend, in order to
protect myself?
God forbid! To radiate friendliness is not enough. Seek to possess more
than this, that you may radiate more. Greater than friendship is love.
Love your friend as yourself. He is having a desperate struggle. Give
him your love, your thoughtful, considerate, protective love. If
necessary treat him as you would an insane person, for the highest
medical experts now concede that "while alcoholic excess is a prolific
source of disease and mental instability, _disease and mental
instability are even more provocative of the alcoholic habit_." The
greatest possible kindness to such an one would be to lovingly,
tenderly, sympathetically _lock him up_. The insane man must be kept
from doing himself and others an injury. Society must protect itself
from the evil doer, regardless of his moral responsibility, but the
"how" of that protection is one of the most important things in the
development of the human race. As we now protect ourselves we show the
barbarity of the aborigine, the cruel vindictiveness of the savage.
I am fully satisfied that the time will come when we shall so radiate
Christian love one to another, and especially to our weaker brothers and
sisters--whether their weaknesses manifest themselves in alcoholic
excess, sexual sins, gambling, theft, drug-manias, or any other form of
wrong-doing--that we shall prepare for them places where they may be
properly cared for, and especially whenever they fear they are in danger
of succumbing to their weaknesses. This method would not apply to those
who are so enthralled by sin that they think they find great pleasure in
the gross gratification of the senses, for such are doomed to suffer
until they are forced to see their errors and turn from them with
loathing, but there are others who are unwilling victims to appetite and
evil habits. The burdens which weak humanity carries are many and
complex, and sometimes even mysterious. It is known to the medical world
that many wrong deeds and even serious crimes are committed by men and
women under temporary abnormal mental conditions. In Scriptural times
doubtless it would have been said that they were possessed with demons,
but the modern expert calls such conditions _manias_ of various kinds.
Whatever the subtle cause of this species of insanity, it is generally
admitted that the attacks are of a periodical nature, and that during
the intervals the victims conduct themselves in accordance with ordinary
standards. Condemnation and ostracism cannot remedy such evils, but true
Christianity should prompt a method of treatment that will encourage and
sustain rather than induce despair. Even ordinary so-called "sinners"
are not reclaimed by avoiding them utterly. Those who go down into the
slums and plague-spots of our cities would never rescue any of the
"perishing" if they went grudgingly, and holding themselves daintily
aloof in self-righteous superiority. No, they brave the pestilential
radiation in perfect safety and carry hope to the fallen because they
possess the mind of Christ, which is purity and love. This does not
alter the fact that the pure and good naturally shrink from depravity
and degradation, nor that it is expedient to protect the ignorant and
innocent from association with those who radiate impurity, oftentimes,
but since it is well known that society contains many men and some women
whose private lives would not stand publicity, the only safeguard is to
be fortified within with that purity and goodness which involuntarily
resists evil and imparts good.